• Wall Street Journal, Tuesday, February 24, 2009 11 AM

Akio Toyoda, Toyota's incoming president, has strongly signaled that he is abandoning kakushin -- or "revolutionary change" -- the term used by current president Katsuaki Watanabe to describe the way Toyota designs its cars and factories. It spawned technological advances, but led to cars that were often costlier to produce, Norihiko Shirouzu and John Murphy report.

Toyoda is also working to fix a pricing strategy that put the company at odds with some U.S. dealers, who felt its cars were getting too expensive, sources say. Toyoda blames more than the recession for its current woes, and is sending the message that his predecessors worsened the problem by straying from core ideas of thrift and efficiency. On Monday, three top executives who helped lead Toyota the past four years announced their retirement.

Toyoda has long preached a traditional Toyota practice called genchi genbutsu, a leadership maxim that boils down to get out of your office and visit the source of the problem.

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